Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Bob Stannard, a former lobbyist and author. This piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
According to biographer Mason Weems, when George Washington was a young boy he cut down his father’s cherry tree. This is a story that we all heard growing up. It was a good story. It helped us to understand that our first president was a man of high integrity, because he could not tell a lie. For generations it helped the masses to get behind their leaders and support them, no matter what, because it reinforced the notion that leaders are of high moral fiber and good, caring, decent people who would not ever knowingly deceive others.
It turns out the story about Washington was a lie told by Mr. Weems to help glorify Washington’s heroic qualities demonstrated on the battlefield and in the White House. It was just a little lie and told for all the right reasons.
One thing we do still have a little problem with is our ability to level with each other. If we’re in a tough spot and we have to make a choice whether to tell the truth or tell a lie you would not lose the bet if you picked that we’d lie.
Evolution can be a wonderful thing. Man has come a long ways in the past 250 years. We’ve made huge strides from the days of only a million or so people on the planet to a population now of around seven billion. I marvel at how my 2-year-old granddaughter works her mom’s iPhone with ease.
One thing we do still have a little problem with is our ability to level with each other. If we’re in a tough spot and we have to make a choice whether to tell the truth or tell a lie you would not lose the bet if you picked that we’d lie.
As people have evolved so has the art of lying. Let’s look at a few recent examples of just how far some are willing to go to hide the truth. Take Goldman Sachs. Remember them? This is the huge Wall Street institution that you trusted with billions of taxpayer dollars used to bail them (and others) out for nearly destroying the global economy. We’ve now learned that thanks to deregulation banks are no longer banks; they’re brokers using your money to make more money for them.
Goldman’s latest scam is aluminum. They have worked to corner the aluminum market in America, not to save consumers millions of dollars, but to extract billions from your collective wallets. Goldman Sachs has discovered that by not shipping the thousands of tons of aluminum that they control they can manipulate the market. You pay a tiny percentage on each and every aluminum can you buy; they make millions. All they do is move the aluminum from one Detroit warehouse to another to create the appearance of compliance. There’s a story in the New York Times that’s worth reading. You might ask who’s going to do anything about it. Probably no one.
We have another example of lying that may have put the lives of tens of millions of people at risk. Former Entergy supervisor at the Indian Point nuclear power plant Daniel Wilson has been charged with falsifying chemical results on diesel fuel for the power emergency generators trying to hide the truth from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Wilson was afraid that if the NRC knew the truth that they might shut down this aged plant fraught with problems.
Of course, Mr. Wilson could have saved his career by simply telling the truth, because the NRC has never shut down a nuclear power plant, nor would they be likely to shut this one down.
Add to these stories the news that New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (a most unfortunate last name for this character) has been caught lying again about “sexting” with a woman not his wife. How did he handle his lie? He brazenly walked right out in front of the press and said, “I told you there was more information that would come out.” Bravo!
It appears as though the more we lie and cheat these days the more we’re loved. North Carolina put the morally bankrupt (and somewhat bizarre) Mark Sanford back in Congress after Sanford lied through his teeth about hiking the Appalachian Trail when in fact he was in Brazil with a girlfriend. Liar extraordinaire Elliot Spitzer is back hoping to be elected comptroller of New York.
It appears as though we’ve taken lying to new heights, perhaps to an art form. We’ve been able to do so, because there are little, if any, consequences to lying. Yes, the Indian Point chemist has been arrested, but the Entergy executives who misled our own Public Service Board on the leaking Vermont Yankee nuclear plant got promoted.
Why tell the truth when telling a lie is not only easier, but you can get away with it, or better yet, make a comeback? Perhaps we should all join hands, look each other in the eye and shout from the mountain tops that lying is what we do. Everything we say is probably a lie, but you should trust me anyway. We’re just going to move that aluminum over to the next warehouse and you’ll pay more. We’re going to falsify the records to save our jobs.
Who cares that George never really cut down the tree. It made for a great story, even if it wasn’t true.
